Archive for the ‘Government Control’ Category

ObamaCare Isn’t Inevitable

While still good, President Barack Obama’s political health is deteriorating, threatened by what he thought would be balm — his ambitious plan for a government takeover of health care.

Mr. Obama remains slightly more popular than most presidents have been in their opening months. But his job approval rating has drifted down to 60% in the RealClearPolitics.com average. His disapproval numbers have nearly doubled to 33%.

More troubling to Team Obama is the growing gap between the president’s approval rating and declining support for major items on his policy agenda. Independents are increasingly joining Republicans in opposition to administration initiatives that range from reviving the economy to closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo.

Things will likely get worse in the coming months as the congressional stage comes to be dominated by health care. A new poll by Resurgent Republic (a nonprofit, right-of-center education organization whose creation I helped spur), reveals some of the president’s challenges. By a 60%-to-31% margin, Americans prefer getting their health coverage through private insurance rather than the federal government.

Mr. Obama’s record-setting spending binge has also made Americans more sensitive to deficits and higher taxes. Thirty-nine percent said they supported “a health-care plan that raises taxes in order to provide health insurance to all Americans,” while 52% preferred “a plan that does not provide health insurance to all Americans but keeps taxes at current levels.” By a 58%-to-37% margin, American prefer reforming health care “without raising taxes or increasing the deficit” to government investing “new resources to make sure it is done right.”

This is why Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus blanched when committee staffers priced his — which is also the Obama administration’s — draft legislation at a cool $1.6 trillion over the next decade.

The federal government will release an update on the deficit in mid-July, which will likely increase the public’s fear of deficit spending. The current fiscal year’s $1.8 trillion deficit is likely to grow significantly.

There is some good news in the Resurgent Republic poll for Mr. Obama if he can sell his plan as shifting power from “insurance bureaucrats to consumers.” Resurgent’s poll found that Americans favor that by 57% to 38%.

But to argue, as Mr. Obama does, that a government-run health-care plan can control costs better than a market-based system is a mistake. This argument is belied by Medicare’s experience. A study published by the Pacific Research Institute finds that since 1970 Medicare’s costs have risen 34% a year faster than the rest of health care.

Mr. Obama’s trashing of American health care as “a broken system” that must be brought “into the 21st century” doesn’t resonate with most Americans. They are happy about their health care, doctor and hospital. Resurgent’s poll found that 83% of Americans are very or somewhat satisfied with the quality of care they and their families receive.

Nearly everyone agrees that some reforms are needed. But it is also vital to protect areas of excellence and innovation. Stanford University professor Scott Atlas points out that from 1998 to 2002 nearly twice as many new drugs were launched in the U.S. as in Europe. According the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry Report, some 2,900 new drugs are now being researched here. America’s five top hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country, according to Mr. Atlas. And a McKinsey Co. study reports that 40% of all medical travelers come to the United States for medical treatment.

Transforming health care into a government-run system would be difficult to do under any circumstances. Americans are still wary about big government. Health-care reform also always sounds better in the abstract. Public resistance rises once liberals are forced to release the details of their plans.

Meanwhile, the $787 billion stimulus package has not provided the economic kick Mr. Obama promised. The $410 billion Omnibus spending bill the president signed in March and his $3.5 trillion budget plan for next year are also adding to the river of red ink.

Health-care reform was said to be “inevitable” a few months ago. Today, its prospects are less certain, even to Democrats. The issue may even turn out to be a millstone for the party.

Americans are increasingly concerned about the cost — in money and personal freedom — of Mr. Obama’s nanny-state initiatives. To strengthen the emerging coalition of independents and Republicans, the GOP must fight Mr. Obama’s agenda with reasoned arguments and attractive alternatives. Health care may actually be an issue that helps resurrect the GOP.

Item 2: Dealership conglomerate RLJ is owned by Democrat bigwigs Mack McLarty and Robert Johnson. RLJ magically happened to keep all six (6) of their dealerships while its competitors were shuttered. McLarty is a former Clinton chief-of-staff and Robert Johnson (founder of BET) is a major Democrat fundraiser.

Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies — dubbed “tea parties” — to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending. There is no political party behind these rallies, no grand right-wing conspiracy, not even a 501(c) group like MoveOn.org.

So who’s behind the Tax Day tea parties? Ordinary folks who are using the power of the Internet to organize. For a number of years, techno-geeks have been organizing “flash crowds” — groups of people, coordinated by text or cellphone, who converge on a particular location and then do something silly, like the pillow fights that popped up in 50 cities earlier this month. This is part of a general phenomenon dubbed “Smart Mobs” by Howard Rheingold, author of a book by the same title, in which modern communications and social-networking technologies allow quick coordination among large numbers of people who don’t know each other.

WASHINGTON – Defense contractors, high-tech firms, and manufacturing plants are bracing for thousands of potential layoffs across New England resulting from the Obama administration’s plans to cancel or delay key weapons programs, according to company officials, union representatives, and members of Congress.

A metal works plant in North Grafton, Mass., that shapes titanium for use in the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet stands to lose as much as one-fifth of its workforce if production is halted, while more than 2,000 jobs could be lost at divisions of United Technologies in Connecticut that build the jet’s engine and electrical power systems, officials say.

More than 2,000 employees at Raytheon Co. facilities in Tewksbury, Andover, and Portsmouth, R.I., are working on the combat and radar systems for the Navy’s Zumwalt class destroyer, another program widely expected to be cut. Many workers could lose their jobs or be transferred out of the area if construction of the warship is halted, according to the officials.

And firms large and small – including General Dynamics in Taunton and iRobot in Bedford – are keeping a close eye on the fate of the Army’s set of next-generation ground combat vehicles, which rely on a host of computer systems and communications developed in the Bay State, but are also on the chopping block.

“All the major programs that are being discussed would have a Massachusetts or New England impact,” said a Senate aide who is tracking the budget deliberations to gauge how they might effect the region’s economy, which is already struggling in the deepening recession.

The Obama administration is about to unveil a Pentagon spending plan that officials say will slash weapons programs identified as either too costly or not meeting the urgent needs of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates stayed behind in Washington, even with President Obama attending a NATO summit starting today in France, to iron out the final details of what he calls a “strategic reshaping” of the Pentagon’s investment strategy.

Gates’s office has said that jobs will not be a factor in the Defense Department’s deliberations.

“It’s not the responsibility of this building to worry about the economic impact of budgetary decisions,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters recently. “It’s the responsibility of the secretary and this building to provide recommendations to the president about what’s in the best interest of our national security.”

But the economic impact of the cuts – especially at a time when the job market is already under strain – is clearly on the minds of company executives, workers, and their elected representatives in Washington. Yesterday, the Labor Department reported initial claims for unemployment insurance rose last week to 669,000 nationwide, the most in more than 26 years.

How can Secretary Of State Clinton claim that the U.S. is mostly or even partially to blame for Mexico’s Drug War if there is no proof been presented by Mexico if the first place? This is just a stunt to try and past legislation that will hurt Gun Rights in the U.S. and will do NOTHING to keep the guns out of the drug cartels.

In his article “Mexico’s drug violence is hard on Arizona”, Washington Post columnist George Will is one of the latest columnists to repeat the myth that American gun stores along the border are the main source for Mexico’s drug cartels.

Mr. Will is late to the party and misinformed.

This meme started appearing as far back as the summer of 2008 when the Los Angeles Times started publishing a continuing series of stories titled “Mexico under Siege”.

Time and time again the U.S. is blamed for our “lax” gun laws that supposedly allow guns and money to flow south into Mexico, while drugs and human smugglers flow north into the U.S.

It’s almost like a coordinated effort exists among the Brady Center, anti-gun news agencies, and the Obama administration to drum up negative press consisting of half-truths, distortions, and downright lies.

Some of the wildest accusations are that Arizona gun stores were supplying fully automatic weapons (assault rifles or even machine guns), grenades, and rocket-propelled grenades! All of which is blatantly false and unsubstantiated.

All this came to a head when U.S. Attorney Eric Holder floated the idea that it was time to revive the now-defunct Clinton Gun Ban which expired in 2004. From MSNBC:

The attorney general also suggested that re-instituting a U.S. ban on the sale of assault weapons would help reduce the bloodshed in Mexico, where last year 6,000 people were killed in drug-related violence…U.S. officials have a responsibility to make sure Mexican police “are not fighting substantial numbers of weapons, or fighting against AK-47s or other similar kinds of weapons that have been flowing to Mexico,” Holder said.

Now we see George Will is repeating the meme:

But although almost all the cartels’ weapons come from the United States, the cartels are generating upward of $15 billion annually from drugs, human trafficking and extortion.

Nowhere does Will mention that the Mexican authorities have yet to provide serial numbers or trace data proving that most of these weapons originated from the U.S.

Of the 6,600 gun dealers who operate along the 2000 mile border only one (X-Caliber Guns) is singled out by Will as being suspected of selling firearms to straw purchasers, who then illegally sell or smuggle weapons across the border.

Ironically, the same morning Will’s column appeared in the Columbus Dispatch, The Arizona Republicreported:

State prosecutors suffered a public setback in efforts to combat border violence Wednesday when a judge dismissed high-profile charges against a Phoenix gun dealer accused of arming Mexican cartels.

The case against George Iknadosian, owner of X-Caliber Guns, had been covered on national TV broadcasts and in stories by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

But in mid-trial, all 21 counts were dismissed by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Gottsfield, who decided he had found a flaw in the government’s case.

Gottsfield dismissed jurors and granted acquittal in response to a so-called Rule 20 motion sought by Baker. Under Arizona law, Rule 20 holds that a case must be thrown out if the state’s evidence is inadequate for conviction.

“There is no proof whatsoever that any prohibited (firearm) possessor ended up with the firearms,” he said.

Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi auto-matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as well as to attack each other.

These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. (emphasis added)

Incredulously some think that restricting the rights of American gun owners due to Mexico’s inability to control its own criminals is a perfectly rational response.

Flush with cash, drug cartels are going to be able to get any kind of weapons they desire and restricting the ownership of legally owned firearms in the U.S. is not going to even slow them down. Consider the fact the Columbian drug runners have been utilizing submarines of their own manufacture to smuggle drugs. Each one of these subs is estimated to cost $1 million to manufacture. How can they afford this? In 2007 when the first sub was captured, it was carrying 5 tons of cocaine worth an estimated $350 million.

While George’s column is not explicitly anti-gun, and is more focused on the violence that illegal drugs is bringing to Arizona’s citizens, he does repeat inaccurate information that unfairly demonizes gun dealers along the border. Fortunately Americans aren’t buying into the lie that we are the source of Mexico’s problems. Last week, 65 Democratic legislators have sent a letter to the Attorney General advising him that they will not support a renewed “Assault Weapons” ban and chastise him for trying to use Mexico’s problems as a pretext for restricting American’s rights.

I would suggest that if the Adminstration is that worried about violence and drugs spilling accross the borders into the U.S. they should do something really constructive……like build a fence along the whole border and hire more Border Patrol agents.

Here is another article that was well written and has some great information, and comments about why we can’t just believe everything we are being fed about the cartels getting the deadly weapons from the U.S.

Six years ago, I wrote a book called “Uncle Sam’s Plantation.” I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it.

I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas. A poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism.

I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing and Food Stamps.

A vast sea of perhaps well-intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960s, that were going to lift the nation’s poor out of poverty.

A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from “How do I take care of myself?” to “What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?”

Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems – the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.

The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools and broken black families.

Through God’s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.

I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by a Democrat president. A few years after enactment, welfare roles were down 50 percent.

I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth-producing American capitalism.

But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.

Instead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.

Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, “Thank you, Suh.”

Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.

There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.

In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short-term economic stimulus.

“This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending – it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education.”

Perhaps more incredibly, Mr. Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place “with unprecedented transparency and accountability.”

Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation and the Department of Education.

Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 – The War on Poverty – which, President Johnson said, “… does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.”

Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single-parent homes and out of wedlock births.

It’s not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama’s invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.